Inspired Stories: Newsletter Volume 7, Winter 2007

Inspired Leaders Team Member Upcoming Events Resources Making Change Happen Inspired Leaders Monthly we have invitational calls about projects so that donors and their advisors may hear first hand about cutting edge leadership and initiatives. Tracy facilitates these. If you would like to be invited please call 713.527.7671 or Tracy@inspiredlegacies.org. Team Member Phil Cubeta Advisory Board Chair Phil Cubeta blogs philanthropy as a citizen at Gifthub.org. On company time, he serves as the self proclaimed, charitable cheerleader for a national financial services group that works with high net worth clients on their business, financial, and philanthropic strategies. Prior to that he headed up his company's philanthropic network out of their home office in New York City. Phil became the chair of our IL Advisory Board, coached at key points our launch and this year, produced breakthrough materials in my new book on legacy work and how advisors and donors and nonprofits need to work better together. We dedicate this Thanksgiving newsletter once again to Phil Cubeta for his tireless support and persistence to excellence in the shaping of the world we want. See our team and boards. Upcoming Events November 20, San Francisco Release party with The Women's Building, UBS Financial Services, and co-hosting organizations, San Francisco, CA. December Supporting donors, foundations, and nonprofits to maximize year-end giving. January 15-19 Tipping Point Network, Northern CA February 7 Venture Partner Conference, Houston, TX 8 Our Giving Community Workplace Giving Summit, Los Angeles, CA 24-28 Threshold Foundation, Santa Fe, NM March 13-14 Women’s Initiative, United Way, Sarasota, FL 30-April 2 Association of Fundraising Professionals Conference, San Diego, CA View our calendar for more. Resources We have created a site for Inspired Philanthropy and there uploaded the exercises, worksheets, and appendices from the book in the Resource section. Please see listings there for more, including: Partnering with Clients for Inspired Outcomes: Notes to Advisors and Nonprofits (pdf) by Phil Cubeta, CLU, ChFC, MSFS, CAP. Please feel free to send us links to resources that address legacy or philanthropic planning and revitalize democracy through citizen participation. Making Change Happen There are now some 1.5 million nonprofits to choose from. Each quarter we will link to nonprofits that inspire us and our readers. We urge your own due diligence of these nonprofits. Women Moving Millions www.womenmovingmillions.org Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy www.epip.org Yes! Leadership www.yesworld.org/ Enlighten Next www.enlightennext.org/ MindOh! www.mindoh.com A note from Tracy Gary: Mind Oh is a for profit and we believe in their tools and talents in supporting young people and teachers. Their work to keep teens in schools and to develop social networks and to stop bullying is exemplary. We urge you to call them. They have research showing their years at this work, is keeping kids not just in schools, but improving their grades. You can become a Mind Oh school for a few thousand dollars, and change the lives of kids and parents and teachers in schools around the country. Call them and see how at 713-533-1138. See our growing list of organizations making change happen. Receive another Inspired Stories! We welcome your feedback and ideas at any time! To contribute to the next issue of Inspired Stories please submit by February 1, 2008.

View From the Founder
Legacy Tools
Inspired Products
Legacy Partnerships
Letters to Loved Ones
Transitions

Your checkbook is your autobiography!
~ Maddie Levitt

View from the Founder

Welcome to thanks-be-given season and the time to unleash our generosity full force. We extend our thank yous and cheerleading for the precious days and hours ahead to impact our communities and world.

As you gather your family this holiday season, let’s take hold of the circle gathered and that precious time to talk about how we can do more to care for our communities and our world. We see our collective work about living the legacy we want for life. It’s  about shifting the culture from overdoing, over buying, overworking, overtaking the world and undergiving to each other and those in need.  Let's begin with changing the conversation this week with each other. How might you deepen things with your circle this Thursday?

We offer our new book, Inspired Philanthropy, as a tool for our important work to transfer the values and practices of giving that we know are essential to counterbalance the materialism of the season. We have just returned from the books’ release in New York and will be in San Francisco today for its launch. We are so excited to be sharing it with you and your family as a tool for all our work on giving and legacy. As an op-ed we are sending around for Thanksgiving says (see Partnerships below) --let’s make the day after Thanksgiving, GIVING DAY, and not let the malls get the best of our abundance.

The market is up now between 6% and 50% for some investors, this year alone and has been on a pretty steady incline for many of us for years. Most of us have more money than we could EVER have imagined. This may mean you have more to give or could give more. Lots more in many cases. A November 7th Wall Street Journal article, Donors Harvest Tax Benefits of Hot Stocks, says that up to 4.5 billion dollars more could be given if donors would transfer stock they have held for at least one year that they have gains on, directly to nonprofits. So think carefully as you consider your giving plans this season and DO take the extra time to send appreciated stock if your advisor suggests it…as it’s truly a win-win. Just do it soon as nonprofits often don’t get the cash till they sell stock, and it can take weeks for these transactions.

Over the past year, those of you who four years ago may have had $3m in assets (which placed you then in the top 1% of Americans) that same 1% now, on average has $6.6 million or more in assets. Could even the average among us do and give more, YOU BET. Giving by most Americans is still at 2% -10% of income. Wherever you are on the spectrum of giving, consider your assets and how your wealth has grown. Could you double your giving given what’s at stake? This is the season to also thank you, for the time and care it takes to build this precious democracy and to shift the culture we want.

To shift that culture we need moral leaders and teams of conscience. To do that, capacity is essential. We ask you to remember that Inspired Legacies and our work to build transformative leaders and transformative philanthropy also needs your investment.

Think for a moment of all Inspired Legacies has brought to you and the world this year: the new version of the book, support when you call or make referrals, workshops to over 12,000 people, and new tools all available to the public, on our two new web sites, www.inspiredphilanthropy.org and www.inspiredlegacies.org. As a nonprofit with a $425,000 budget in 2007. We have about $75,000 left to raise by Dec. 31st: of this -- $25,000, we hope, will be in a corporate sponsorship; $25,000 from five nonprofits, each with a $5,000 sponsorships for both our Inspired Philanthropy trainings and tour; and then $25,000 more for our transformative philanthropy projects and year-end operations for Inspired Legacies.

Additionally we are seeking $75,000 in early 2008 to hire a Donor Stewardship person for our Tipping Point Fund and Transformative Philanthropy Projects.

If you are seeking great works to invest in and you want to partner with us to make the needed cultural and consciousness shifts needed ahead, please contact me for these mission matching partnerships at 713-527-7671.

We’d love to find simply four donors at $25,000 or ten at $10,000 who will support us to make the capacity building quantum leap that we need. If you could consider some piece of this, $2,500-$5,000, $10,000 or $25,000, in your own or your family year-end giving, do give me a call directly and we will send you our proposals and inspire your hope with our plans and network of leaders poised and already shaping the world we want. It’s time we dignified our work with more staff and capacity.

In 2008, once our Associate Director is on board, we want to create podcasts and articles, and videos of exemplary and powerful partnerships (between donors, their advisors and nonprofit leaders). This is another funding opportunity and just two donors giving $5,000 each would give us our pilots for this. Could you consider being an angel for this amazing work? If you’d like to help sponsor more PR and marketing of our work, another $10,000 would be a great. This way we can make our case with donors and advisors who are exemplary in the field and showcase great works already present.

All our work is the result of donors and community leaders and our board and staff working at full tilt to make change happen. Over 3000 books were distributed within one week during National Philanthropy Day and ads and bookmarks. And we want to especially thank our team for the Inspired Philanthropy book launch: Luis Rivas, Jean Russell, Barbara Brust, Beth Carls, Amy Looper, Tammi Wallace, Tim Feder, Rich Polt, Rochelle Lefkowitz, Phil Cubeta, Tori Williams, Bonnie Kell, Vann Vaughn, Rick Russell, Margie Adam, Karen Payne, the five students who jumped in to help our data base expansion, and the donors who made our Donor Diva and Inspired Philanthropy Campaign possible:

Ruth Ann Harnisch and The Harnisch Family Foundation (for their $100,000 gift to distribute 4000 books and support our marketing and PR for our DONOR DIVA CAMPAIGN.)
Marion Weber/Flow Funding Circle (for their support of our two new websites and outreach to nonprofit leaders, donors and advisors.)

Join us!
Tracy Gary

Email me your story: Tracy@inspiredlegacies.org or share your concerns and best practices and have a wonderful winter.

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Legacy Tools

Our tools have greatly expanded since our last newsletter. We have added the exercises, worksheets, and appendices from Inspired Philanthropy to our resource section on Inspired Legacies.

Highlights of these tools include the Inspired Philanthropist Checklist Worksheet 10.1 (pdf).

Additionally, we have added a diagram showing the 12 Steps of Inspired Planning (pdf), which shows the many elements at play in creating and evolving an Inspired Plan.

For information on a dynamic tool for inspired planning, see Inspired Wealth Coaches and a listing of coaches we celebrate.

Use Policy: We encourage you to use our materials. We would like to know that you are using them so please fill out our contact form or email your proposed use and full contact information. Feedback is encouraged. Please also make a donation to Inspired Legacies to compensate for the value you find in its use. This helps us cover costs and create more tools for you and the world.

We welcome your feedback and ideas at any time!

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Inspired Products

Inspired Philanthropy: Your Step by Step Guide to Creating a Giving Plan or Leaving a Legacy
Nov. 2007, Jossey Bass

In a 12 minute podcast social entrepreneur, Amy Looper, interviews Tracy Gary, author of Inspired Philanthropy: Creating A Giving Plan and Leaving a Legacy. The purpose of the book and the purpose of the podcast are to bring donors, advisors, and nonprofits together in common purpose. See also the podcast where Tracy explains what a wealth coach is.

Co-produced by Tracy Gary, Phil Cubeta, and Amy Looper.

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Legacy Partnerships

A Prayer for Thanksgiving Tables
By Tracy Gary

How blessed we are. As we prepare to enjoy the holidays, we remember those who live instead with the results of disaster—the Asian tsunami, Africa’s AIDS epidemic, the Gulf Coast hurricanes, global warming, the aftermath of the California fires.

It's the giving season, so we are asked to respond. Of course we care and many of us donate. I think about the homeless new survivors just as I do immigrants and refugees here and around the world.

Who really will help rebuild their lives? Who holds the orphaned babies? And could we do more to help sustain them? Could we give more strategically and get our government to do the same?

We open our hearts and our wallets, but it's hardly enough. Americans give over three hundred billion dollars annually to some 1.5 million nonprofits. Sadly, this is about how much the government is spending to recover along the Gulf Coast. Good people still live with the impact of our long time neglect and the flooding there.

As we gather for Thanksgiving, instead of shopping the next day, let's revive what the Tides Foundation's Tod Hill once dubbed "Giving Day".

As inspired donors, let’s plan for this year’s year-end giving to include a "giving strategy", and a discussion about what role we might play in disaster relief and what role our government should play.

As many of us prepare to overwhelm ourselves with excessive abundance this holiday season, with food and gifts we truly do not need, let's instead consider being bolder in our giving by setting aside a larger percentage for those causes and organizations we believe in.

Look at soup kitchens and food banks around the country that get flooded by contributions and volunteers from Thanksgiving through December, but lack ongoing support throughout the year. How can we give more than a bubble donation?

A giving plan can help us focus our giving. Could we give better and more boldly? Can we get more systematic and consider a larger collective gift? Could we volunteer together instead of shopping!

We live in a country, and most likely in a household, that can step up to share more than we do. This year, then, let's not allow shopping get the best of our abundance. Instead, let’s extend opportunities for health and prosperity in our world.

Starting today, let’s renew our commitment to the true spirit of Thanksgiving, the extension of ourselves to others. Let’s bring intentionality to our giving, and transform ourselves and our society in the process.

In honor of Phil Cubeta
Lately Phil Cubeta volunteered to come and spend a day doing podcasts for us, about our new book--take a listen, but read first about someone who inspires me daily with his partnership, visionary guidance, and care.

A year and a half ago when we launched this organization, it's inspiration was you, the donors, advisors and nonprofits who we could see needed support to collaborate in new and essential ways, to unleash your and other's generosity.

But the source of HOW that might happen came primarily from one person, Phil Cubeta, who blogs philanthropy as a citizen at Gifthub.org. On company time, he serves as the self proclaimed, charitable cheerleader for a national financial services group that works with high net worth clients on their business, financial, and philanthropic strategies. Prior to that he headed up his company's philanthropic network out of their home office in New York City. Phil became the chair of our IL Advisory Board, coached at key points our launch and this year, produced breakthrough materials in our new book on legacy work and how advisors and donors and nonprofits need to work better together. We dedicate this Thanksgiving newsletter once again to Phil Cubeta for his tireless support and persistence to excellence in shaping of the world we want.

Tracy; Phil Cubeta, Chair of IL's Advisory Board; and Jean Russell, at Inspired Legacy Partners event in Chicago. Photo credit: Michael Maranda.

This past spring Phil, Jean Russell, and I convened a meeting of advisors, donors, and nonprofit leaders to see how we might collaborate across the silos for the greater good. From that convening has come a plan of action: to find and promulgate the best practices of collaboration within and among specific giving communities. We may be in touch to interview you about what is working with your giving, your advisors, and your nonprofit allies. To help us tool up further, Phil and his wife, Katie became generous donors to our cause.

Press Partnership

We recently partnered with Louder than Words to promote Inspired Philanthropy. Our first collaboration announces the release of the book. (pdf)

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Letters to Loved Ones

This month, rather than a letter from a loved one to another, we share a letter from the chair of our board, Bob Belkin:

Dear Reader,
The exciting thing about Inspired Legacies isn’t that it is dedicated to making good things happen –the exciting thing about Inspired Legacies is that it is dedicated to helping others make good things happen.

The feeling of satisfaction and personal fulfillment that we gain when we do good works is hard to beat, and you can accomplish it through your support of Inspired Legacies. When we are able to multiply and leverage the good works done by so many people we can trust that the future will be in good hands.

After all, the future is what Inspired Legacies is really all about. We want to make a positive contribution to a better world by helping and encouraging others to consider the best and most rewarding uses for their wealth in keeping with their family objectives and values. The long term positive legacy planning results in the best of good works.

The future of our health as a people, emotionally, physically, and spiritually, and the future of our health as a planet requires the effort of all of us. Inspired Legacies is all about bringing out the best in all of the people we can. Our work is dedicated toward making it easier for those that want a better future to be enabled to make it happen.

Your help is essential. Without you we are too limited to make a difference. With you we all make a difference. Let’s make a difference together.

Best wishes for all the joy of this holiday season from all of us at Inspired Legacies.
Bob Belkin
Board Chair

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Transitions

Maddie Levitt

Tracy Gary shared:

I will sorely miss Maddie. On my desk rests a present from her—a legacy statement to me, “Your checkbook is your autobiography!”

Maddie raised and gave millions for the college she cared so deeply about, and always with panache and in her distinctive white shoes and winning smile. We dedicate our efforts with Women Moving Millions to Maddie and the women of our generation who are now asked to step up to her love of humankind.

Maddie Levitt was a community leader, fundraiser, and philanthropist:

• honored with the prestigious Woodrow Wilson Award for Public Service.
• participated as a generous donor and member of the Women’s Philanthropy Institute.
• acted as the first woman to chair the annual campaign for the United Ways in Central Iowa.
• served as the national chair for two of Drake University’s capital campaigns, becoming the first woman in the United States to chair a coeducational university campaign that raised more than $190 million.
• served as chair of the Greater Des Moines Community Foundation and the boards of Drake University, the Boys and Girls Clubs of Central Iowa, Blank Park Zoo, and many more.

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